Özlem Kayhan Pusane was born in Ankara, Turkey in 1980. She graduated from the Middle East Technical University (METU) in 2002 with a B.Sc. degree in International Relations. She received her M.A. degree in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame in 2004, where she also received her Ph.D. degree in Political Science in 2009. She is currently an assistant professor at Işık University (Istanbul, Turkey). Özlem’s broader research and teaching interests lie in the areas of security studies, civil-military relations, counterinsurgency, and counterterrorism.